Rating: Summary: Highest Reccomendation Review: This book is not only an engrossing read, but is a very badly needed warning to those of us wondering why today's children often show a marked disinterest in reading. Children forced to read dull, uninspiring works that do not speak to them will have no cause to love reading. Inoffensive or no, literature possessing or truth, love, or beauty should never be disallowed of our children.Although literacy must begin at home, Ravitch shows that pressure groups have undeniably worsened that quality of both literature and history in schools. Taking the position of a social seer of sorts, neither left or right of center, Ravitch shows how censorship both for secular and religious reasons is wrong. Ravitch equally condemns the civil rights leader who despises Huckleberry Finn for it's racial insensitivity as she does the Christian fundementalist objecting to Huxley's Brave New World. If you tire of having American heroes you grew up with unrecognizably changed or cut out of history books, if you are tired of your children being forced to read dull, inane literature utilized solely for it's inoffensive nature, and if you think that censorship, be it in the guise of religious morality or civil rights is wrong, then you must read this book. We cannot allow ourselves to continue on to a world of vanilla banality.
Rating: Summary: A Voice from the Middle Path Review: The Buddha repeatedly told people "I am not a god." He also tried to get across to admirers that he was not a holy man either. He was a thinker, a wise man. What he said was recorded. He said it enough. But as you know hardly anyone pays attention to what he said he was. Buddha taught repeatedly that after years of struggle, study & thought he had discovered something profound, namely that following extreme paths was the source of considerable destruction and misery. Like Socrates in the West, Buddha discovered the tempered middle path is best. "Take the middle path," he said. Hardly anyone pays attention to this advice.
Diane Ravitch is a distinguished American Historian who takes the middle path. As clearly as Diane Ravitsh thinks and writes, a reader cannot fully grasp what she presents in "Language Police" without reading one of her scholarly histories or at least examining her heavy use of quotes and her careful and balanced use of documents. I read dozens of acclaimed, alleged, histories of American education before I concluded that I had found a genuine historian of American public education. I am not sure what the other "histories" -all of them written by Professors of Education- are really. I did not waste enough time on them to discern what they are. I just knew they did not describe any elephant I ever saw.
Anyone who feels enlightened, shocked even, by "Language Police"
must read Ravitch's histories "Left Back..." and "The Troubled Crusade..." Ravitch is easy to follow & she presents evidence that may shock you. What she discovered about John Dewey and the run of American Professors of Education will surprise and puzzle.
"Language Police" is not strict scholarship but it is certainly scholarly. Unfortunately, many will trash the book for all the wrong reasons and just as many will applaud the book for equally wrong reasons. Those who want to embrace a different view of things regardless of the facts will hate Ravitch. Those who attempt to out shout the secular left will love Ravitch. The more rational of both camps will be confused by Ravitch, as she writes that she discovered minions of both the extreme left and right are equally engaged in playing language police.
Writing scholarly contemporary history is very difficult. Ravitch does a good job of it. Researching, analyzing and writing about current events in a scholarly manner is treacherous tightrope walking.
"Language Police" documents The censorship activity and victories of Left and Right Wing extreme groups. Ravitch is convincing in her thesis that sober minded Americans need be alarmed about all politically motivated censorship. It creates a insane culture in which many public school students cannot get a real copy of Huckleberry Finn or a copy of Harry Potter's adventures but public librarians insist they will not censor what children read when someone points out that minors should not have access to Henry Miller, Le Sade or the American voice from the gutter, the perverse Charles Bukowski--not without parental consent.
"Language Police" is must reading for all Americans who take seriously their civic responsibilities as citizens of a democracy. I disagree with Ravitch, if she is suggesting, that there should be no censorship of minors. As I told a public Librarian recently, you can only "censor" adults. You "protect," "indoctrinate," or "socialize" Children.
As Ravitch opines, we do not want our schools indoctrinating children by keeping "Tom Sawyer" or "Harry Potter" from them, but I do think we want to protect them from the perversions of le Sade and Charles Bukowski.
Rating: Summary: Great topic, important info, but badly presented Review: I have wanted to read this book since I first heard of it. A timely Christmas present solved the first part of the problem; I eagerly jumped in immediately. And found many many problems.
The book is badly organized, repetitive, tedious, cliche riddled, prone to tarring with very broad brushes, and outrageously oversimplified. In fact, the book tells a great story in a terribly flawed way, much as the history books she reviews do. But she has no one to blame but herself. I could list many examples, but some of the other reviewers have done a good job on that. Let me just tackle one.
When knocking the attacks that originate on the "right", she lumps all manner of wildly divergent groups together. Names are strung together as if they all believe the same things, seek the same limitations, oppose the same passages. The "right" is a block of thinkers all trying to squelch evolution (which she blithely dismisses), ugliness, Satanism, secular humanism, on an on, blah blah blah. She never addresses whether the objections of some might be more valid than others. Whether the virulent anti-Christianity she so properly complains about later in the book might not be worth questioning and opposing No, she knows the perfect answer to every problem, she knows the proper amount of negotiation required, she arrogantly can determine just where the proper "middle" path is. Just as the windbag authors she excoriates know. It is hard to keep your voice out of the discussion when you feel passionately.
A limitation I didn't see mentioned elsewhere is pedagogical. The kind of teaching she imagines cannot happen in high school. Read two textbooks? As a former teacher, if I could have gotten my students to read one book I would have been thrilled. But two different books describing the same facts? In a single year? With students three to five years below reading level? Whoa...not in 50 minutes a day, lady. Not happening.
Rating: Summary: Superb research by Ravitch Review: I am an "Oriental" (sometimes "inscrutable"), a "widow," a "senior citizen," a "housewife," a "bookworm," a university "alumna," and have been "chairman" of many organizations. According to the language police, the above sentence is "politically incorrect" and all the words in quotation marks are banned from usage in school textbooks. Never mind that it is a true statement and describes a "lady" (me) accurately.
Diane Ravitch has scared the "hell" out of me by citing hundreds of appalling examples of textbook censorship perpetrated by both liberals and conservatives. Censorship, bowdlerization, and outright changes of authors' words are enacted under the aegis of numerous evaluation, testing and textbook watch-dog groups. All are guided by the misconception that it is for the sake of educating children to become more tolerant, unbiased and sensitive to multicultural issues. Words in classic works by Twain, Whitman, Thoreau, Steinbeck, Wolfe, Dickens, Shakespeare...almost every literary giant...have been bowdlerized, expurgated or changed so as not to offend anyone even though the literature states and depicts history, and the words are true to the period. History books are treated in the same manner, leaving the student with half-truths and lies by omission. Even math and science are not free of this textbook mauling.
Ravitch has made a strong case against both the PC liberal and religious conservative language police. Any thinking person ought to be outraged.
Ravitch presents some guidelines for textbook writing and solutions for the selection of textbooks. One of her solutions is to allow teachers to select their own textbooks just as university professors are permitted. Ravitch, however, does not say enough about the need for teachers to teach objectively. Ideally, teachers should have textbooks that present both or all viewpoints, or 2 texts with opposing viewpoints. Teachers who are allowed, without specific guidelines, to choose their own textbooks are most likely to choose them according to their biases. Bias is not confined to either left or right; however, recent studies have shown that over 70% of college professors are liberal and promote their own beliefs in their classes. If elementary and high school teachers follow their example, the problem, as perceived by conservatives, would be compounded. Conversely, liberals would, rightly, complain about biased conservative educators.
Most importantly, Ravitch is right - teachers should teach what they know, or - in proper order - the teacher should become educated expertly in a subject and then teach that subject. An athletic instructor is seldom qualified academically to teach history. And finally, the qualified teacher should offer and encourage alternative literature and texts to study, then be open to unbiased discussions.
Ravitch's research is thorough, thoughtful and truthful.
Rating: Summary: A serious Wake Up Call Review: Book shelves are awash in educational critiques, but The Language Police is in a class of its own. It is an objective, yet alarming expose of the insidious process which determines what students may or may not be tested on, and what is included or excluded from their textbooks.
This readable, well researched work by respected educator and historian Diane Ravitch, who was appointed to key national educational posts under both Democratic and Republican Administrations, is a scathing indictment of the special interest goups which pressure their state education officials. Textbook publishers respond with products which are not only boring, but profoundly misleading as well.
"Bias and sensitivity reviewers" of the left and the right are laboring under the illusion that keeping students from reading offensive words, or seeing illustrations of objectionable concepts (even on the periphery) will shelter them and move the world a step in the direction desired by the reviewers. Ravitch shows how activists from both extremes of the political spectrum have entered the bureaucracy and formed a perverse alliance which has eviscerated texts in Literature, Science, History and every other subject. The result is a massive collection of bland books devoid of anything thought provoking.
Ravitch's compilation of current examples is notable for its breadth and depth. She documents the bizarre world of the "curriculum experts" who have morphed into de facto censors, in which every character must be a model for living, reverse stereotypes are mandated, the elderly are always robust, children are always obedient and everyone is always happy. History texts deemphasize the development of democratic institutions and refrain from suggesting any culture is more or less advanced than any other. "Even those that had no literacy and only meager technology are described as advanced, sophisticated, complex and highly developed." Ravitch correctly points out that student readers will not be equipped to perceive the importance of freedom, democracy and human rights in the successful functioning of multiethnic, multireligious societies.
The Language Police" is a serious wake-up call, and may be the most important book on American education to be published in the last decade. I have bought it in bulk to distribute to the teachers, principals and school board members I know.
Rating: Summary: a harsh wake up call Review: This book exposes the absurdity of political correctness and the dangers of permitting it to continue. You will laugh with outrage; you will shake your head in utter disbelief. Diane Ravitch has put together a book that should scare every reader.
" The Language Police" is very informative. It's well documented and fluid in its arrangement.
What has our society been reduced to when you can't refer to a blind person as blind, a woman as a maternal caregiver, or an old person having difficulty running a marathon? Ravitch forces the reader to confront those questions.
" The Language Police" made me aware that our educational system is failing our children far more than I realized, because a spade is no longer a spade in the textbook world; it's everything else but what it is and has always been, a spade.
Please read, especially if you have children. I do, and now I doubt that my wife and I will send our child to public school.
Rating: Summary: Be afraid!! Be very afraid!! Review: I'm an English teacher in a small, rural school district. If you had asked me if the PCP (Politically Correct Police) were roaming the halls and infiltrating the classrooms in my school, the answer would have been a resounding "NO." Little did I know that people aren't the only agents of the PCP; books and standardized tests can do the job just as well. I had often noticed that the textbooks I used were severely lacking in the "literary" department, but it wasn't until I read this book that I understood why. Diane Ravitch does an excellent job of explaining how every special interest group known to man wants to leave its mark on public education. If you're a dead, white guy...well, give it up now. There's little hope that you'll be represented in anything resembling a textbook or test. Ravitch includes some of the scariest and funniest (knock your head against a brick wall kind of funny) stories behind this crusade to make our schools as politically correct as possible. Here's an example of the lunacy. A story about a blind mountain climber can't be included on a test because 1) it's insensitive to the physically handicapped and 2) kids who live in flat parts of the country might not be familiar with mountains. Not enough? Here's another. After making sure there was a 1:1 ratio of man/woman portrayals in a textbook, the publishers received word that a feminist group was still challenging their product. The reason? When animals were counted the man to woman ratio was actually 2:1. Animals are now as influential as people. Other horror stories include character names being changed so they sound more "ethnic" and excerpts from well-respected literary pieces being "changed" so as to reflect a more "multicultural" view of the world. There are two parts of this book that are invaluable. The first is a glossary of banned words, usages, stereotypes, and topics. Read this for a good laugh. Some of the entries are obvious, but some are just ludicrous. Example: "America/Americans - use with care, because it suggests 'geographical chauvinism' unless it applies to all people in North America, South America, and Central America; refer instead to people of the United States" (p.171). The second must-read part of this book is the Atkinson-Ravitch sampler of classic literature for home and school. It gives a breakdown of what the author thinks should be read at certain ages/grades. The list is challenging, but I can see its usefulness. As an English teacher, students don't usually read things that challenge them. This book opened my eyes and made me look at the textbooks I use and the standardized tests I give more closely. I have begun to supplement what I teach with outside sources. I have begun to mix "classical" literature with the stuff that passes for literature in my textbooks. It may not be a perfect solution, but if it hadn't been for Ravitch's book, I would never have known a problem existed.
Rating: Summary: Highest Recommendation Review: This book is not only an engrossing read, but is a very badly needed warning to those of us wondering why today's children often show a marked disinterest in reading. Children forced to read dull, uninspiring works that do not speak to them will have no cause to love reading. Inoffensive or no, literature of truth, love, or beauty should never be disallowed of our children.
Although literacy must begin at home, Ravitch shows that pressure groups have undeniably worsened that quality of both literature and history in schools. Taking the position of a social seer of sorts, neither left or right of center, Ravitch shows how censorship both for secular and religious reasons is wrong. Ravitch equally condemns the civil rights leader who despises Huckleberry Finn for it's racial insensitivity as she does the Christian fundementalist objecting to Huxley's Brave New World.
If you tire of having American heroes you grew up with unrecognizably changed or cut out of history books, if you are tired of your children being forced to read dull, inane literature utilized solely for it's inoffensive nature, and if you think that censorship, be it in the guise of religious morality or civil rights is wrong, then you must read this book. We cannot allow ourselves to continue on to a world of vanilla banality.
Rating: Summary: Orwell & Bradbury Would Have Understood Review: When most Americans think about censorship in our schools, they usually have in mind objections to novels like Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye, both of which have been banned for racial stereotyping or use of obscenities. Much less known is the more insidious dumbing down of school textbooks that present American history and values as some impossibly sanitized utopia that has as much connection to actual historical and literary veracity as the Greek Homer does to Homer Simpson. In THE LANGUAGE POLICE, Diane Ravitch outlines a three decades old trend to eliminate any and all references to words, phrases, ideas, and values that even hint that American history and literature might today offend readers with a lowering of self-esteem. Women cannot be pictured as wearing aprons, cooking, cleaning, typing, or even caring for their children. Instead, they are to be pictured Soviet-style as driving tanks, arresting lawbreakers, and running for political office. Men are now pictured in terms that have never been heretofore seen in any society, most often as nurturing helpmates who watch the kids while his female lifemate is lifting heavy objects to bring home the bacon. Children are never described as naughty; the elderly not as feeble, the handicapped as marginalized. Every illustration, every story, every test must contain references to a society that is racially proportional, gender proportional, and even food proportional. What is left is a vast reservoir of a patently phony view of a society whose primary goal is not to teach but to self-enhance. Ravitch includes a thorough discussion of how textbook publishing firms are not the real villains. Rather, she points an accusing finger at a liberal left lifestyle that sees America more as a sociological petri dish that can be tinkered with to produce a mindset that George Orwell in 1984 might have affirmed. At the end of the book, Ravitch includes a long list of terms that are prohibited as being sexist, racist, or regionalist. In any recently published text, you will never encounter a word with "man" as a root. "America" is passe. So is reference to describing Afro-Americans as living in any impoverished urban setting. Asians must not be seen as studious, polite, or hard working. What Ravitch makes clear is that as long as political correctness is the law of the land, then the glossiness of splendid looking textbooks will do no more than mask an emptiness of thought and spirit that the worst despots of history might well have endorsed.
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